Where do we grow from here?

When talking about systemic, complex problems in the world I’ve found myself gravitating towards discussions of how we would rebuild an ideal society, from scratch. It’s always a lively discussion to talk about what we wish already existed in the world. It’s also quite satisfying learning a little bit more every time, tracing back the roots of the current system with every new piece of information and perspective. Eventually though, the discussion comes around to the action part and it goes something like

‘We have an idea of what an ideal society would look like but in reality there is no building from scratch or going back in time, so what can we do?’

At that point after the lovely shared existential depression, my friends and I punt the discussion to another time. Once again.

I’m here at AC4D for the year-long immersive program seeking the skills and the community to help take some concrete steps after all the feel-good critique of the current systems is over.

We just got done with the orientation week at the AC4D and were thrown into the deep end to get a taste of all the steps of the process we’re going to learn here.

In our teams we worked on the research step first which consisted of coming up with questions and identifying people we wanted to talk to. The topic of research housing affordability. We interviewed people, which was a little scary in the beginning  but everyone was very warm and happy to help us out. Everyday was an introduction to a new concept and step in the process and with that new information we’d take our project further. After collecting the data, we learned to sort through it.

The next step - synthesis was a mind melting exercise that I know I need to do a lot more of. The goal of synthesis was to find meaningful information from all that the users had shared with us and then look for themes and patterns across information shared by multiple users. As you start to move data (utterances) around and start to see themes across different users, insights might start to jump out at you or you just stare at your board of post-its until your eyes water and create one out of thin air. It’s ok to be wrong. It’s all iterative. 

Now once there are some insights ready as the starting ingredient of the next step - ideation, we get ready to suspend judgment and focus on writing down as many ideas as we can. This was really hard for me, the judgment of what’s a good idea or not, what’s an idea or just some thought floating around in my mind was happening so fast and at such a low level that I just couldn’t suspend it. It was fun but it could’ve been more fun. Sometimes I’m the enemy of fun, another thing to (un)learn while in this program!

There were a couple of interesting moments / experiences that I want to share:

First was realizing that it was hard to put down one of the hats I’d been wearing for many years (software dev). I just wanted to propose interesting and fun software solutions before even studying the problem and the users’ needs properly. It was happening at a very automatic level. So it will take some intentional practice to suspend that part as well.

The second experience was this big dose of expectation adjustment that felt awful and great at the same time. We want to learn about specific users and how we could help them. We want to propose solutions that help in the long-term and address the big picture issues but we also need to understand the scope. The larger issue might be income inequality but that’s not really an insight, that’s known knowledge so when looking for insights there is a sweet spot on that big picture and personal, lived experience spectrum. And it’s hard to find that but that’s a starting point. That insight.

My fellow classmates and the instructors all come from such interesting professional and cultural backgrounds. It’s been one of the most welcoming and kind groups of people that I’ve met. It would make sense that this community attracts highly empathetic people who are all here to create meaningful things. My first 1.5 weeks at AC4D have been energizing and my mind is buzzing with thoughts and the anticipation of shared learning, exploration of ideas, and building of things.

We don’t have the luxury of simplifying the world or starting from scratch. We have to begin from here. In the AC4D program I’m hoping to learn the tools I need, and find the community I need, to not be afraid of that next step.

Now, to quote an Austin mural artist who in turn drew inspiration from MLK Jr’s words, “Where do we grow from here?”

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[ I’m not sure if the original mural is still there but there are many photographs of it over the years. The artist wanted to bring attention to the displacement of the original residents of East Austin neighborhoods. ]